Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Charles Henri BEANLAND was born on 17th October 1895 in Woodford, Queensland

His parents were Thomas BEANLAND and Lydia Emma Kinton TREVOST who married on 5th January 1874 in the Primitive Methodist Church in Brisbane

# 4079 BEANLAND  Charles Henri                                          25th Battalion
 
Charlie Beanland was the youngest of the ten children born to Thomas and Lydia Beanland. The Beanlands were well known in the Woodford community for their involvement in various business enterprises and timber milling. Charlie attended Woodford State School and when old enough began work in the family saw milling business.
 
Charlie attended the Brisbane Recruiting depot in Adelaide Street on 18th September 1915. He stated his age as 19 years and eleven months and occupation as timber loader. Charlie named his father, Thomas, as his next of kin. At Enoggera Camp, Charlie was placed into the 5th Depot Battalion to begin his military training. In December 1915, he was allocated as a private to the 10th reinforcements of the 25th Battalion. On 28th March 1916, the 10th reinforcements boarded the “Commonwealth” in Brisbane, bound for the infantry depot camps in Egypt. The embarkation roll for the 10th/25th shows that Charlie Beanland allocated 4/- of his daily overseas pay of five shillings to his parents.
 
The 10th reinforcements landed at Suez then moved to the infantry depot at Tel el Kabir. On 30th May, the reinforcements boarded a ship at Alexandria and headed across the Mediterranean to Marseilles and then by train to the large British depot and training camp at Etaples on the French coast south of Calais. The reinforcements spent their time at Etaples in further training until movement orders were received.
 
On 1st July 1916, General Douglas Haig, Commander of the British Forces in France and Belgium launched his big push with the opening of the Battle of the Somme. The battalions of Kitchener’s new army, mostly conscripts, suffered appalling losses; 60 000 casualties on the first day of whom 20,000 were killed. The gains of the offensive were minimal but Haig was committed to pushing on. By the middle of July, three of the four Australian divisions in France were moved south to the Somme where they would be thrust against the might of the German Armies. The primary objective was the high ridge on which nestled the village of Pozieres. The 1st Australian Division successfully took the village on the 24th July. The 2nd Division, which included the 25th Battalion, was charged with taking two lines of trenches and a blockhouse on the crest of the ridge above the village on 29th July. The attack was vigorously repulsed with the 25th suffering 350 casualties out of a force of 900.
 
The decision was made to make a second attempt against the German line, once the 2nd Division losses could be made good by bringing up reinforcements. Charlie Beanland was included in a large cohort who made their way up to the front, being taken on strength by the 25th Battalion in the support trenches on 4thAugust. The second attack went in the next day. During the charge at the German trenches, Charlie received a gunshot wound to his left shoulder. He had been at the front less than 24 hours.
 
Charlie was taken to the 44th Casualty Clearing Station and from there was transported to a hospital at Rouen before being allocated for evacuation by hospital ship to England. He was admitted to the Australian Hospital at Harefield outside London on 10th August 1916 and discharged two months later. After enjoying a two-week furlough, Charlie reported to the 7th Training Battalion at Perham Downs. By 11th December, he was back at Etaples and rejoined his battalion on Christmas Eve. By that time, the Battle of the Somme had come to an inglorious end and the troops were forced to deal with a particularly cruel winter. The men of the 25th Battalion were employed in fatigue work repairing muddy tracks and light railway as well as carrying parties taking wire, spikes and rations up to the units manning the front line. This work continued until the end of February when it was discovered that the Germans had used the lull in fighting to construct a line of heavy fortifications some distance behind their existing front line. A controlled German withdrawal began to this new position which the British named the Hindenburg Line. Charlie and the 25th Battalion, in conjunction with a large British advance cautiously followed until encountering the Hindenburg Line at Bullecourt. Several unsuccessful attempts were made to breach the line at Bullecourt in April 1917, in which the 25thplayed a supporting role. By May 1917, the Australians were withdrawn for an extended period of rest and retraining.
 
In the spring of 1917, General Haig turned his attention to Belgian Flanders and the Ypres salient and began preparations for this new assault. On 11th May, Charlie Beanland was appointed to the rank of Lance Corporal and then on 4th August to the rank of corporal. The 25th Battalion went back into action in September 1917 in the Battle of Menin Road with Charlie leading his section for the first time. The Battle of Broodseinde Ridge followed on 4th October. A campaign which had begun with successes at Messines, Menin Road, Polygon Wood and Broodseinde came to halt in front of the village of Passchendaele when unseasonal drenching rain turned the low lying ground into a quagmire of sucking, stinking ooze that could trap a man up to his waist. Horses and mules became stuck up to their bellies and artillery pieces were unable to find a piece of stable ground from which to fire. Haig ordered his troops to continue the assault against Passchendaele; a decision which has haunted his legacy ever since.
 
Corporal Beanland had performed his duties well during the Flanders campaign and on 16th October 1917 with the battalion out of the line, was appointed Temporary Sergeant. Ten days later, Charlie was handed movement orders to report to the Officer Cadet Training Battalion at Oxford in England. Charlie would spend four months at officer school before passing his exams and being commissioned as a Second Lieutenant on 30th April 1918. One of his first tasks was to visit one of the tailoring establishments in London where he would be fitted for a uniform jacket, riding breeches, collared shirts and tie, Sam Browne belt and riding boots. Following the tradition from the British army, officers had to pay for their uniform items and these items remained the officer’s property.
 
On 11th June 1918, 2nd Lieutenant Beanland boarded a ferry at Southampton for the crossing to France. Two days later he arrived at the 25th battalion’s lines where he was assigned as officer in charge of a platoon in “D” Company.
 
While Charlie had been in England, the war had taken a dramatic turn. The German commanders had launched a powerful assault in the Spring of 1918 on the British forces on the Somme and four of the five divisions of the AIF had been put into the line to defend the vital communication hub of Amiens. The German advance was halted at Villers Bretonneux in late April but all the gains made by the British armies on the Somme in 1916 had been surrendered. Major General John Monash, commander of the 3rd Division AIF had encouraged his troops to harass the enemy through what he called “peaceful penetration”. On 1st June, Monash was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant General and given command of the entire five divisions in the Australian Army in France. He immediately began to plan a small attack using only Australian troops with the objective of removing German observers from a high point called the Wolfsburg which overlooked the village of Hamel. When Lieutenant Beanland joined the 25th, preparations were well in hand for the assault which would include the 25th Battalion in the order of battle.
 
Monash’s plan called for a coordinated use of artillery, aircraft, infantry and as a late inclusion in the plan; tanks. He also had at his disposal a contingent of newly arrived American Troops which he included in his planning for the battle which would take place on 4th July; American Independence Day. Monash estimated it would take 90 minutes for the Wolfsburg to be captured. For two weeks before the appointed day, the artillery had conducted a harassing strafe on the German lines at 3:00 am each day. The fire contained high explosive, gas and smoke forcing the defending Germans to don their gas masks for the duration of the barrage.
 
At 3:00 am on 4th July 1918, the regular artillery barrage crashed down, but without gas shells. The assembled Australians rose up out of the jumping off trenches, lit cigarettes, and followed their own barrage as it crept towards the German lines where many of them were taken prisoner still wearing their gas masks. It was all over in 93 minutes. While leading his platoon through the smoke and dust, Charlie received a serious shell splinter wound to his abdomen. He was taken by stretcher bearers to a field ambulance and then on to 5th Casualty Clearing Station where he died of his wounds the following day. He was 22. Charlie was buried in the Crouy British Cemetery adjacent to the CCS with the Rev Wheeler conducting the burial. The matron at the CCS wrote to Charlie’s parents in Woodford no doubt informing them of their son’s last words.
 
In due course, Charlie’s personal effects which included a wallet, letters and photos, a wristwatch, gold ring and a fountain pen as well as his entire uniform were all packed into his officer’s valise and shipped to his parents. Thomas Beanland was granted a pension of 14 shillings a week. Several members of the Woodford Community donated a marble plaque and a bishop’s chair to Saint Matthias Church in memory of Charlie. His parents chose the following inscription for their son’s headstone: THE LORD GAVE AND THE LORD HATH TAKEN AWAY, BLESSED BE HIS NAME